John 13:35

Compare translations:

KJ21 By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples: if ye have love one for another.”
ASV By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
AMP By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you have love and unselfish concern for one another.”
AMPC By this shall all [men] know that you are My disciples, if you love one another [if you keep on showing love among yourselves].
BRG By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
CSB By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
CEB This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love each other.”
CJB Everyone will know that you are my talmidim by the fact that you have love for each other.”
CEV If you love each other, everyone will know that you are my disciples.
DARBY By this shall all know that ye are disciples of mine, if ye have love amongst yourselves.
DLNT By this everyone will know that you are disciples to Me: if you are having love in-the-case-of  one another”.
DRA By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.
ERV All people will know that you are my followers if you love each other.”
EHV By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
ESV By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
ESVUK By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
EXB All people will know that you are my ·followers [disciples] if you love ·each other [T one another].”
GNV By this shall all men know, that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
GW Everyone will know that you are my disciples because of your love for each other.”
GNT If you have love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.”
HCSB By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
ICB All people will know that you are my followers if you love each other.”
ISV This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
PHILLIPS When he had gone, Jesus spoke, “Now comes the glory of the Son of Man, and the glory of God in him! If God is glorified through him then God will glorify the Son of Man—and that without delay. Oh, my children, I am with you such a short time! You will look for me and I have to tell you as I told the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot follow.’ Now I am giving you a new command—love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you must love one another. This is how all men will know that you are my disciples, because you have such love for one another.”
JUB By this shall everyone know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
KJV By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
AKJV By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
LEB By this everyone will know that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.”
TLB Your strong love for each other will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
MSG “Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other.”
MEV By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
MOUNCE By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
NOG Everyone will know that you are my disciples because of your love for each other.”
NABRE This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
NASB By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
NCV All people will know that you are my followers if you love each other.”
NET Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.”
NIRV If you love one another, everyone will know you are my disciples.”
NIV By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
NIVUK By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.’
NKJV By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
NLV If you love each other, all men will know you are My followers.”
NLT Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
NMB By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
NRSV By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
NRSVA By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’
NRSVACE By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’
NRSVCE By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
NTE This is how everybody will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for each other.’
OJB By this will kol Bnei Adam have da’as that my talmidim you are, if ahavah you have one for the other.
TPT For when you demonstrate the same love I have for you by loving one another, everyone will know that you’re my true followers.”
RSV By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
RSVCE By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
TLV By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
VOICE Everyone will know you as My followers if you demonstrate your love to others.
WEB By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
WE This is how all people will know that you are my disciples.'
WYC In this thing all men shall know, that ye be my disciples, if ye have love together.
YLT in this shall all know that ye are my disciples, if ye may have love one to another.'

Possession

Not sure what book this is from, got it off Reddit, but I thought it was interesting. Reminds me of doing the 6 element practice.

Dump

Pearls of Winter

Lisa J. Jisa has written Pearls of Winter (Goodreads). I went to high school with Lisa and she's a friend. We often have spiritual discussions and swap links. She is a Christian and believes God is love. She can see the problems with certain churches and religions and is not a fundamentalist or anything like that. I find interfaith discussion important. In the past she wrote for her newspaper in Arizona. Check out her book.

8 verses of mind training without commentary

With a determination to achieve the highest aim

For the benefit of all sentient beings

Which surpasses even the wish-fulfilling gem,

May I hold them dear at all times.



Whenever I interact with someone,

May I view myself as the lowest amongst all,

And, from the very depths of my heart,

Respectfully hold others as superior.



In all my deeds may I probe into my mind,

And as soon as mental and emotional afflictions arise-

As they endanger myself and others-

May I strongly confront them and avert them.



When I see beings of unpleasant character

Oppressed by strong negativity and suffering,

May I hold them dear-for they are rare to find-

As if I have discovered a jewel treasure!



When others, out of jealousy

Treat me wrongly with abuse, slander, and scorn,

May I take upon myself the defeat

And offer to others the victory.



When someone whom I have helped,

Or in whom I have placed great hopes,

Mistreats me in extremely hurtful ways,

May I regard him still as my precious teacher.



In brief, may I offer benefit and joy

To all my mothers, both directly and indirectly,

May I quietly take upon myself

All hurts and pains of my mothers.



May all this remain undefiled

By the stains of the eight mundane concerns;

And may I, recognizing all things as illusion,

Devoid of clinging, be released from bondage.

#5 (37 practices of Bodhisattvas)

When you keep their company, your three poisons increase,
Your activities of hearing, thinking and meditating decline,
And they make you lose your love and compassion
Give up bad friends--
      This is the practice of the Bodhisattvas.

My initial reaction to this verse is that I don't like it. I think that's the whole point of the bodhisattva is to leave the monastery and be in the world (like the Buddha) with all it's complications and negativity. You don't flee for your own spiritual development, you rush into the world.

But you can't be friends with lack of virtue. Friendship is only with a person who possesses virtue. There is no such thing as a bad friend, there is only a person who does not participate in friendship, maybe comrades in samsara.

You can monitor your feelings and be aware. There is not sin in taking care of yourself and guarding your development. You can't help people if you can't take care of yourself. Self care is very very important.

So when someone is draining your ability to hear, think and meditate, you make sure that they do not snuff out these abilities. You nurture and cherish your abilities to do these things, for everyone. If you're going to go down a dark spiral if you associate with someone, then don't associate with them. Being a bodhisattva isn't sacrificing yourself, unlike the Christian martyr. You are going for enlightenment for the sake of all beings, but destroying yourself doesn't do that. You could choose to sacrifice your body for others, but going down a negative path is not the same thing, and this life is precious.

I think of Ksitigarbha from the Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva Pūrvapraṇidhāna Sūtra, who vows not to achieve Buddhahood until all hells are emptied.

But by no means do you need to constantly put yourself into harm's way either. It's OK to surround yourself in nourishing relationships and rarely challenge this setup. You should not pretend you are more spiritually advanced than you really are to please others.

You may have an Iago who gaslights you because he can't outright murder you, but feels he can undermine you, sabotage you under the guise of a loyal servant. Or maybe a Lady Macbeth, who encourages you to be murderously ambitious, and shames your concept of manhood to help get you there. Or maybe you listen to the flattering daughters like Lear, that support your grandiosity. Or maybe a Tybalt can draw you into a conflict to your detriment.

If you go on r/family on Reddit you will encounter people who realize their family is undermining them and perhaps are a not the all good that family is portrayed. On r/relationships on Reddit you will find that relationships change and people can realize or see someone has changed to be undermining. People change. They can be supportive and helpful for a while, and then change. Perhaps you give a friend the benefit of the doubt, or you give them a little more of a chance to be a full person with the negative and the positive that everyone has. But clinging to the idea of how someone is in the past might also be masochistic and unhelpful.

(go back to #4 here (there are actually 44 verses in the text, 2 preface, and 5 postscript))

Thich Nhat Hanh quote

"Understanding someone's suffering is the best gift you can give another person. Understanding is love's other name. If you don't understand, you can't love" -- Thich Nhat Hanh

Dhamapada

Joy Harjo

"Watch your mind. Without training it might run away and leave your heart for the immense human feast set by the thieves of time."

From Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings

Not mine

Addicted to information: Idle curiosity

I imagined that learning was somehow free from addiction and pure goodness. But this article from NeuroscienceNews.Com shows that facts are also part of the reward system that gets all wrapped up in addiction:

"“To the brain, information is its own reward, above and beyond whether it’s useful,” said Assoc. Prof. Ming Hsu, a neuroeconomist whose research employs functional magnetic imaging (fMRI), psychological theory, economic modeling, and machine learning. “And just as our brains like empty calories from junk food, they can overvalue information that makes us feel good but may not be useful–what some may call idle curiosity.”"

I've been reading a history of America and looking lots of things up on Wikipedia. There were woman who fought in the Revolutionary War: Deborah Sampson Gannett, Molly Pitcher, Anna Maria Lane, Sally St. Clair and Margaret Corbin.

We joke about "surfing the internet" is like going down the rabbit hole, a reference to the great curiouser and curiouser book Alice In Wonderland. It turns out always looking at our phones is a kind of addiction.

I've always seen curiosity as a virtue, but I suppose everything can be turned into a vice.

Could this be applied to the whole industry of celebrity gossip? Could this be applied to wanting to know more about Shakespeare, when there's little biographical information?

They outlawed slaves learning to read because they might get big ideas, or learn about all the slave rebellions going on all over the place.

The information age has changed a lot of things. Caskets have gone down in price because people learned you could get caskets for cheaper somewhere else.

Where are the stories where information hurt people? I know that drug information did not decrease the amount of drug use, like it was hoped.

Sangharakshita talked about a kind of dharma indigestion where people knew too many exotic practices and dharma but were not really putting any of it into practice. Nothing was valued or sacred it was all just gorged information.

Maybe we should call it not the information age, but the clickbait age, slowing down to rubber neck.

Poem by Sangharakshita

The Minor Poets

Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, Coleridge
Are godlike spirits; we are men,
And cannot always brook their splendour –
The Minor Poets please us then.

The singers of the lesser vision,
Who never soar beyond our ken –
When we grow tired of greatness, they,
The Minor Poets, soothe us then.

Oppressed by fears, by doubts bewildered,
From Melancholia’s cluttered den –
For all their charm, for all their solace,
The Minor Poets, we thank them then.

Faded bindings, dusty edges,
Words underscored by studious pen –
Rejoice to see them on the shelves,
And praise the Minor Poets then.













Came across this poem when I googled "Sangharakshita and Shakespeare". I love "Melancholia’s cluttered den". There was a guy who wrote on the r/Shakespeare subreddit about his depressed feeling in realizing he would probably not be able to surpass Shakespeare. I don't really worry about that, but I think in a way that "cannot always brook their splendour". Maybe not.

Not sure if Sangharakshita means to list his top 4 favorite poets. We can't ask him anymore because we lost him last year.

He died at the same age as my grandfather. In the refuge tree, we imagine all our fathers and mothers over our shoulders. In the refuge tree is Sangharakshita and his teachers in the "teachers of the present" 9.

Turning away from reading the Dharma is something I'm doing more and more. I've been reading through Shakespeare. At a certain point, everything is Dharma.

Julian of Norwich

Been listening to Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love. I saw someone was reading it on Goodreads, and was interested. I missed her holiday May 8th. I find that Christian mystics can write interesting things even if I don't buy into their whole scheme of things.

The Mindfulness Conspiracy

The Guardian has an article entitled The Mindfulness Conspiracy. I'm honestly getting a little tired of people generating articles about subjects they that ends up being reinventing the wheel. I dismissed the article when I read someone thought it was clickbait. Clickbait is such an important concept. I find myself clicking on links that never contain the photo on the original link and ends up being a slide show. I don't click on slide shows any more. Just can't do it no matter how cool all the old photos are. I'm also struck by the line from Lenon, "nobody told me there would be days like these."

The subheadline is, "It is sold as a force that can help us cope with the ravages of capitalism, but with its inward focus, mindful meditation may be the enemy of activism." Right there I disagree. I think of the wonderful book Time To Stand Up by Thanissara.

Taking care of yourself is profoundly revolutionary and supports the revolution, despite what Ronald Purser, the author of the article, says. I would also suggest that turning inward ultimately helps people to tune into injustices in the world, and mindfulness can focus one's energies for change. The Bodhisattva ideal is all about helping others. The idea that unhappiness resides within us doesn't mean that we don't need to seek to redress injustice outside of us. Understanding the barriers to metta, compassion and sympathetic joy is incredibly revolutionary. I would argue that that is the work that needs to be done by those in the yang of politics who's policies lead to the death of Americans. Just to pick one example, our love of guns leads to the murder of 350 children every year.

I suppose there is the antidote to all this mindfulness rediscovery. Some people have adverse reactions. Often people who are repressing things, or unstable mental structures that come down with change. The problems with people on intense retreats are often that people are not supported through the intense times. I didn't tell my preceptor that I had a deep meditative experience and other meditation problems. But I've learned along the way, and I'm not impatient to iron out all my wrinkles. I just learned an idea that helps me with compassion meditations. The world where you have a guru who sniffs out all your problems is perhaps more spiritual materialism or good luck.

I don't really know if there was a time of deep friendships and deep human interactions. You could make the case that technology has taken us away from that. I don't know if either of those thoughts are true. Objectivity about mind is one gain in meditation. I already had epistemic character, but it took it to another psychological level.

Assuming mindfulness is a "magic panasea" isn't a great place to start. If there's one thing about mindfulness, I've come to realize, there are no magic panaseas.

"Mindfulness zealots" tend to be people who have decided to make a career out of what they love. Purser writes, "And yet mindfulness zealots believe that paying closer attention to the present moment without passing judgment has the revolutionary power to transform the whole world. It’s magical thinking on steroids."

Perhaps he is attacking mindfulness without the Buddhism, and it's community, ethical structure, the history of the Bodhisattva ideal? He says, "Mindfulness is nothing more than basic concentration training." Um, I don't think so. Oh, what he is talking about is secular mindfulness, which is often used to lure in wary Christians who worry about betraying their families. Meanwhile nuns and priests go on retreat and realize something was really missing in their spiritual practice. If nothing at all, with just mindfulness you might become aware that you need ethics, community and positive goals that don't hurt other people. Did he go along to a Sith meditation class?

"The neoliberal order has imposed itself by stealth in the past few decades, widening inequality in pursuit of corporate wealth." It's hard to argue that we have not taken a step back in inequality recently, all the indicators I've read about suggest that things are getting more unequal. To pick out mindfulness as the culprit, well, that does feel like clickbait.

"Stress has been pathologised [sic] and privatised, and the burden of managing it outsourced to individuals." Um, that's been going on since dot.

Taking responsibility of one's life does not conflict with looking at the larger forces with society. He's buying into the either/or dichotomy of the yin and yang of politics. We can tell people to take responsibility for their lives, and work on the greater forces. Conservative would have you not work on the larger forces, and buy into this false dichotomy. Work on individual forces and larger forces. It's the same claptrap of saying that psychotherapy blames the victim. No, it empowers the victim, and you can also wake up to work on the larger forces.

Here is the hedge that totally undercuts his point: "But none of this means that mindfulness ought to be banned, or that anyone who finds it useful is deluded. Reducing suffering is a noble aim and it should be encouraged." Now all of a sudden? Not sure if he's aware of all the good done by spiritual communities in the world. In fact by realizing our inter-being, it's hard to imagine what he is talking about, except in the either/or dichotomy of the yin and yang of politics.

It's hard to imagine a "mindfulness industry" being such a force in society. How about the "social work industry"? That one tuned me into the suffering of the poor, and how unfair and blaming the victim it is, how larger forces grind people into dust sometimes. I met a social worker once who thought psychotherapy was easy, changing the larger forces was hard. Great, you focus your energies where you think it will do the most good. But you don't lift yourself up by putting others down. Again not either/or.

So many phrases, "so-called mindfulness revolution". I know so many people that will disagree with this article. One of the fetters is the fetter of superficiality--thinking that rites and rituals are ends in and of themselves. I think McMindfulness is really just superficiality.

The franchising of mindfulness is blanding it of idolatry so Christians don't get twitchy. Anyway, you bring your ethical system to whatever you do. You can teach mindfulness all you want without an ethical system attached, but even so I think humans have a natural ethical sense that can't be gotten rid of. I would prefer to beat the drum of veganism that in my opinion is the largest personal act you can do to improve the world. No mention of that.

Superficiality and spiritual materialism are well known problems. Keep fighting against them. "because what it offers is so easily assimilated by the market, its potential for social and political transformation is neutered. " So don't neuter it. Did you really think the revolution would come from an industry? It's like he feels the revolution industry has been sidetracked. It's kind of funny to even imagine the revolution industry. I see revolution as lead by woke individuals or just ideas having their time in a widespread way.

When I read, "A truly revolutionary mindfulness would challenge the western sense of entitlement to happiness irrespective of ethical conduct." I think about how you have to promise toys to children to get them out of the burning house, but once they get outside, what they find isn't toys, but is so much better. Selling Buddhism through happiness is misguided but does capitalize on a psychological research obsession of a few years ago. I would argue that revolutions are lead not by angry people but by people who fight injustice and can keep their equanimity.

"Perhaps worst of all, this submissive position is framed as freedom." I think facing our minds is profoundly unsubmissive.

His critique of neoliberalism is fine. Unfortunately the conflation of mindfulness collaboration isn't really proved. But it got a long post out of me, so for that I am grateful. But look up Joanna Macy and then tell me mindfulness isn't about everyone and everything. It's called Systems Theory baby.

On a positive note (the world really is getting better) Bhutan is supporting female monastics, countering valuing just men. The good work done by Bhutan Nuns Foundation.

Love

Here is a short video about this book by the author so you can get a brief sense of her.

I've noticed "felt sense" being used a lot amongst Buddhists. I read that phrase first in Eugene Gendlin's book Focusing.

Lama Palden Drolma in 1987 she founded Sukhasiddhi Foundation in the SF Bay Area (Fairfax is north of San Francisco), a Tibetan Buddhist center in the Shangpa and Kagyu lineages. Her teachers were Kalu Rinpoche, HH Karmapa the 16th, Jamgon Kongtrul, Tai Situpa, Bokar Rinpoche, Dezchung Rinpoche, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, HH Dudjom Rinpoche, and the Dalai Lama.

One thing I like about this book is that she talked about how others suffering can enter our body and reside there if not processed. By inviting suffering in and metabolizing it, the negative energy is diffused. You visualize a vajra which is the indestructible absorber of suffering smoke.

I'd imagined a lint filter, that you had to keep cleaning out, but I like the vajra much better. I have a vajra on my shrine. I keep seeing Dr. Farnsworth saying, it's dolomite baby.

I like the way she writes and there are many different versions of how to do the meditation of tonglen, even for the non-Buddhist in this small book. 

Times Review of George Will’s latest book

“Today’s culture is a reason for thinking that perhaps people should be a bit more circumscribed by manners and mores, and would be improved by a pinch of awe about something other than their own splendor.” 

“They inevitably cast a shadow on what passes for conservatism in the Republican Party today. Their values are domination; gut-thinking; cultishness; recklessness; fundamentalism; and the preference for raw power over letting things be.”

Review

"give me that man/that is not passion's slave." Hamlet

"give me that man/that is not passion's slave."

Mary Oliver poem quote

Amazing video

Coleridge wrote of Hamlet, "All duties are holy for him; the present is too hard." (p. 202 Shakespeare and Modern Culture by Marjorie Garber). My solution to that problem is to trust your instincts, your gut. This is where emotions cut down possibilities and you can act in your own best interest. A man had a hunting accident that cut off his emotions from his brain. He seemed normal. He went back to work and someone asked him, "what would you like for lunch." The possibilities were too much for him, he could not decide. While emotions are often the bad guy, make you do bad things impulsively, we tell people to think more. But emotions serve an important function of narrowing possibilities to help you act. Focusing is one method taught to help you tune into your body's wisdom. You can do a body scan. You can do one of the many variety of somatic meditations. Reginald Ray has one.

You can watch a video of Ray on YouTube, interview by Renate McNay on Consciousness TV, uploaded 2015. The video is over an hour, but I watched it.

They go into Ray's 17 years with Chogyam Trungpa. He speaks about his Episcopal root of trying to leave the body. What strikes me about him is his humility. Renate McNay talks about the loss of her child as the crisis that helped her to work towards embodiment. Watch the rest of the video to find out how he does it. The practice helps you to know what your body knows. You see the small slice of reality you've been looking at for it's narrowness as you widen your perspective. You become less invested in your small slice of reality and begin to see infinity.

McNaly said she tried the Earth meditation, and usually she goes up, but to go down seems like the wrong direction. We become disembodied by walling off from our body. You learn to feel and sense the body. You notice the tension of the body. You begin to release the tension. We stop walling off experience. Embodiment is co-extensive with the universe. The experience of oneness with the universe. You let go of tension by going into it. Put your awareness into the tension. That act changes it, you perhaps begin to see how you're holding onto the tension. McNaly says she accepts pain and that disperses it. She feels like it's an endless process. Ray thinks the purpose of life is not to reach an endpoint. Life is a process of unfolding that gives an imperative. Egolessness is the realization that there is no fixed point. Everyone wants the upcycles. Downcycles teach us more. You reregulate, and that is how you grow. Ray's son was 15 when this video happened. That reminded McNaly of a teaching that we are all tired from going through the cycles. But at times the story disappears for her. Ray says it's the ego that's tired, it works so hard.

Ray has done 11 years worth of solitary meditation. Two or three months for 40 years. Ray told Trungpa about his desire for solitary meditation, and he said that's not what we're doing, we're mixing with life. He talked about longer meditations making him go weird. He feels like a month or month and a half was the best length for him, he says 10 years ago (2005?). Milarepa had lots of disciples around him, he wasn't always alone. Long long solitary retreats are not helpful because you're not getting the feedback you need.

Ray has done 3 times month long retreats in total darkness. He hoped it would help him work on his unconsciousness. Trauma did come up. He also talks about calling up his wife to talk him off the edge of some of his insecurities. Trungpa says you think you can handle it, but you can't. Trauma is something you can't handle that you block off. Ray said he was in 19 hours of hell working on it. He said after 3 times doing this, he felt like that was enough. He didn't formally meditate, he just came back to his experience in the dark.

He got buried up to his nose and mouth. He said it took 10 years to resolve the issue of a rock that was in his back while he was buried.

40 minutes out of 70 minutes and I felt full up, I needed a break to process what I'd just seen. I highly recommend this video. Sensory integration is part of this somatic meditation and I'm amazed at how it keeps coming up. When I meditate more, my smelling improves. Usually, I'm pretty glad I can't smell all the stank smells other smell, but I also worry that I'm blocked and unintegrated, not that I have an inferior olfactory sense.

Thai culture of Amulets video